A good result on the GRE General Test is particularly helpful to candidates that have a bachelor in social sciences or other undergraduate degree without a strong quantitative component.

In previous years, the GRE score has helped directors identify candidates with excellent potential but little previous exposure to serious mathematical training. Hence we strongly encourage candidates to submit a GRE.

The digital revolution brings with it an explosion of data that carries significant potential value for businesses, science, and society.

As data becomes easily available as never before, so too does its volume grow, and extracting useful quantitative insights becomes more and more challenging.

The Barcelona GSE Master in Data Science prepares its graduates to design and build data-driven systems for decision-making in the private or public sector, offering a thorough training in predictive, descriptive, and prescriptive analytics.

The curriculum will guide students from modeling and theory to computational practice and cutting edge tools, teaching skills that are in growing global demand.

Data Science students will be armed with a solid knowledge of statistical and machine learning methods, optimization and computing, and the ability to spot, assess, and seize the opportunity of data-driven value creation.

Students will learn how to apply classroom examples using real data and answering concrete business questions from the perspectives of different industries. Through an independent master's project and the opportunity for industrial practicum work conducted with local businesses, students can have the opportunity to solve actual analytics problems hands-on.

Our courses are taught by leading academics and researchers in the fields of Economics, Operations, and Statistics, as well as experienced professionals from the analytics industry.

The program also invites guest speakers and entrepreneurs working at the frontiers of the Data Science.

Accenture Data Science Scholarship

Accenture sponsors a full scholarship for one student in the Barcelona GSE Data Science master program.

** Requires some prerequisite knowledge and authorization of the program director. Availability depending on sufficient demand.

Master degree awarded

Upon successful completion of the program, students will receive a Master Degree in Data Science awarded jointly by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF).

All Barcelona GSE master degrees have been recognized by the Catalan and Spanish Education authorities within the framework of the Bologna Process (in Spanish, “Master Universitario o Master Oficial”). Indicadors de qualitat

What skills and knowledge will I acquire in this program?

Expertise in modern computational, high-dimensional and simulation-based Statistics and Machine Learning

Solid evaluation of the opportunities of data-driven value creation within companies and organizations

Data Science students usually come from backgrounds in Economics, Business, and other quantitative subjects. They typically have a solid economics grounding, a keen interest in quantitative methods, and the ambition to work on real-world problems and data. Programming professionals and aspiring PhD students looking to acquire analytical and quantitative tools will also benefit from the Barcelona GSE Data Science Program.

The industrial practicum is an in-depth analytics project that takes place during the final three months of the master. The practicum gives Data Science students the opportunity to complete a "deep dive" analytics project using real data from selected companies around Barcelona.

Students will dedicate 300 hours to the practicum, collaborating with companies on-site using real data to solve a specific challenge that requires the types of "skill bundles" they have acquired during the first two terms of the master program.

Companies that have expressed interest in offering practicum projects to Barcelona GSE students include commercial banks, consulting firms, mobile application developers, risk analysts, and online retail platforms, among others. With a wide menu of companies competing for their attention, students are very likely to be matched with a practicum in the industry where they might prefer to work after graduation.

Some of the companies collaborating with the industrial practicum are:

Sample practicum project titles

Skill Assessment of Seasonal Temperature and Precipitation Forecast over Europe

Client Clusterization Among Banking Clients

Voice Feature Analytics for Early Detection of Parkinson Disease in Speech

I chose the Barcelona GSE Master's in Data Science because I was impressed by the faculty and the program of courses. It was important to me the program emphasized mathematical theory. It’s relatively easy to teach yourself data visualization, coding and to apply different machine learning algorithms - so I knew it was important to focus on the “hard stuff” while in school. For me this would be the mathematical theory and proofs behind why the models and methods work.

Right after graduating from the Master's in Data Science I had a wide variety of job offers as a data scientist. The data sector is growing quickly, and many companies in Barcelona are starting to realize how important it is to have a Big Data department. It was very encouraging to see that my efforts were so recognized.

Attending the Data Science master courses gave me the right mix of skills that any employer would value. Not long after graduating, I found myself with 5 very interesting job offers to choose from, any one of which would have given me the opportunity to dig deeper into machine learning, text mining, data visualization, and the statistical techniques I studied at the BGSE. If I had the chance, I would do it all over again!